


A Way to Reach the Future

by JadeFlicker



Series: One Piece 20 Years At Sea [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Day 4: Moments you cried, Family, Friendship, Gen, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Nakamaship, Tumblr: 20yearsatsea, as a result
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeFlicker/pseuds/JadeFlicker
Summary: They accidentally landed on Ohara.





	A Way to Reach the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth contribution to the One Piece 20 Years At Sea anniversary event, I want address one of the moments I cried the most. And that was Robin's backstory. Holy fuck, everything about it had my eyes watering. Her eating bread alone and being told she eats too much, her mother, her leaving, and the fact a LIBRARY WAS BURNED TO THE GROUND.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

At first, she hadn’t been able to recognize it. From pretty much every angle, it looked like a blackened, barren ice shelf. But as Robin walked closer to one of the large outcroppings, she could just barely make out the vague shape of a ruined house within the refractions of the ice.

 

It was by complete chance that they had stumbled on this island. Fleeing from the Marines in a random direction and then being waylaid even further by a freak storm had most of the Straw Hats worried for a bit. Then like a prayer (or more probably, their captain’s almost offensive amount of luck), the island had popped up on the horizon and they were now resting here as the Log Pose re-adjusted itself. The fact that she hadn’t recognized the Winter Island until an hour after they had docked (and the entire crew had accidentally stumbled onto her home village, had seen her shocked and disturbed reaction) was probably the best example of just how much it had changed.

 

Though to be fair, it wasn’t actually a Winter Island. Or at least it wasn’t before.

 

She should have known.

 

The skyline differed, yes. Most notably, there was no longer a Tree of Knowledge. And whatever remaining trees had been left were frozen solid rising crests of ice or had already been burnt out of existence. Only the ruins of buildings and the mountains remained, and ice covered it all to create a hostile, jagged, white-blue-black line across the sky.

 

She didn’t know why she was so surprised, however numbly.

 

The last time she had seen it, the entire island was in flames. The last time she was here, Aokiji had been standing on her home island as she was forced to flee from it forever. Back then, when he told her to run and never come back, she fully intended to. Because even as a child, she knew it would be as she saw now, with nothing left.

 

“Robin,” Zoro called, forcefully jerking her out of her brooding. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Chopper was with their swordsman. It explained how they found her in front of her uncle’s old house and how the one-eyed man hadn’t somehow wandered off one of the cliffs. Seeing that he caught her attention, he continued soberly, “The others found something. You should come see this.”

 

With a controlled sigh through her nose, she pulled away from one of the monuments to her past and shuffled over to follow her friends.

 

In her memories, Ohara nearly always had sun. Even on her most troubling days ( _when she was called a freak or a burden_ ), the sun still shone cheerfully, the nights were clear, and they all walked in the shadow of the Tree of Knowledge. But much like Punk Hazard, Aokiji had used enough power here to change the climate of the island altogether. Although it didn’t seem to snow very often (or at least hadn’t so far) despite the near constant cloud cover, it was bitingly cold in a way that seeped and cut right through their winter clothes. As a result, the ground seemed to simply be thick and solid pieces of pitted ice that occasionally transitioned to rock. It made for treacherous footing, and she was starting to regret wearing even her low heels. What areas weren’t covered by layers of ice were barren, black and burnt. Her home island had become a hostile mosaic of icy blues, grays, and blacks that seemed fitting for what it had become: a tomb for childhood, her innocence, and her people. This was a tomb for the scholars and people of Ohara. For Saul.

 

For Nico Olvia.

 

It may not look recognizable any longer, but however faintly, the pathway they took was familiar to her. There was no Tree now to act as a beacon for her to run towards, but she had traveled these paths often enough as a lonely child that she could walk it even with no visible road. Without a doubt, they were moving towards where one of the world’s greatest libraries used to be. But before they reached the plateau of ice that dominated the center of the island, Chopper and Zoro veered off to the side. Now curious, Robin followed silently at a quicker pace.

 

There, up ahead, was the rest of the crew all hovering over one spot. As they threw closer, she could see that they were actually hovering around Luffy. Not unusual, of course, but the way some of them were also peering further downwards also implied that they were studying something else as well.

 

Well, at something besides their captain crouching with his stretched, rubber tongue now stuck to the ice beneath his feet. Her lips twitched as she spotted the extremely put-out expression on Luffy’s face, especially as he gestured at her and tried (failed) to speak.

 

“For fuck’s sake,” Zoro growled, starting to stomp towards the gathering. Though after his third stomp nearly caused him to slip, he immediately started treading more carefully again. “I told them not to let him do anything stupid!”

 

Chopper and Robin exchanged amused glances at their swordsman’s frustration. She felt she probably wasn’t managing to act as casually as usual, if Chopper’s cuddling against her leg was anything to go by.

 

“It’ll be okay, Robin,” their little doctor chirped. Looking up at her, there was something in his face that managed to be both consoling and understanding. “We’re here!”

 

At this point, they all knew some of her story (hard not to when it had literally been yelled from the Tower of Justice), had probably learned about Ohara over time and drawn their own conclusions. But they had never brought it up with her, had never pried. In fact, the only hints that they knew or remembered anything at all were at times like these quiet moments of comfort. For Chopper, it was cuddling and fretting over small, physical hurts. Deciding that she certainly wasn’t strong enough for this, she scooped up their little reindeer crew member and hugged him to herself before continuing towards the rest of the crew. Even if she still felt numbly frozen inside, at least she had a small, warm friend to cuddle with and comfort her. It was a good reminder that she wasn’t alone here.

 

As they drew closer, they could hear everyone bantering about something or another.

 

“Aaaaahh…,” Franky hedged, confusedly watching their captain struggle to unstick his tongue from the ice. “Shouldn’t we help?”

 

Usopp shrugged, but loyally agreed, “I mean, I think we kinda have to?”

 

Snorting derisively, Sanji took another drag of his cigarette before muttering, “When I signed on, unsticking the idiot captain’s tongue from the ground wasn’t one of the things I considered I’d have to do as a pirate.”

 

This earned him a couple of incredulous glances all around, with their sniper incredulously asking, “Have you _met_ Luffy?!”

 

“Hey! The first time you lot dropped in out of nowhere—except you, Nami-swan~! You glided in like an angel from heaven—a lot of shit happened and _I was a bit busy_ ,” the blonde cook snapped. “…But I did consider it about two hours _after_ getting on the boat.”

 

Contrary to Luffy’s comical struggles to unstick his tongue (and succeeding in stretching his tongue further before it snapped back), they were all very calm about it. Even Zoro just looked like he dearly wished he could drop in his spot and go to sleep at that very moment. Chopper, on the other hand, promptly starting freaking out in Robin’s arms.

 

“NOOOOO, LUFFY!” their little doctor screamed, eyes popping out of his head as he waved his little legs and arms. “If we don’t unstick Luffy, he might get hypothermia!”

 

“Chopper, it’s fine,” Sanji waved off. “This rubber shit’s never had trouble with the cold before, short of that blizzard...”

 

Pointedly, he gestured at the rolled up pants and sandals their captain was still wearing, despite common sense. But that moment, Luffy had stretched a little too far or had slipped because the next recoil had the rubber’s man entire _face_ now stuck to the ice. This seem to finally draw their navigator’s attention from where she had been crouching on the ice as well, staring intently at the ground with a sort of focus usually dedicated to her maps and charts.

 

“You _idiots,_ ” Nami snapped as she shot to her feet. Storming over, the orange-head hooked her Clima-Tact out from her belt and shove the point of a bo segment in Luffy’s direction as if she could stab him through the head if she thought hard enough. “ _Heat Ball_!”

 

Deep red bubbles promptly shot out of the staff and hit both Luffy’s head and the ice around it. The sudden change of temperature instantly caused the ice to start steaming, and Luffy’s neck to recoil as his head returned to his rightful place. Immediately, he turned to his archaeologist excitedly.

 

“Robin! Look what we found!” he cheered, he grinned up at her eagerly. “I kept hearing these noises and followed it here and I think it’s _treasure!_ ”

 

Before the dark-haired woman could fully register what the excited young man was saying, Nami had already slammed her fist into the back of his head and knocked him back onto the ice.

 

“ _SHUT UP, YOU IDIOT!”_ she screeched. Sighing in long-suffering exasperation, her features instantly became soberer as she turned to look at Robin. There was no sympathy there in her eyes, but there rarely ever was. Only protectiveness and determination, and for that, the older woman was grateful. She didn’t know what to do with pity. “He’s not wrong though. It looks like there’s something under the ice. And he insists it's important.”

 

 _So it’s probably important_ , went unsaid.

 

At this point, they all acknowledged Luffy’s instincts and luck. Finding something random and declaring its importance was hardly the craziest thing the D had ever done, and each crew member was proof of that. So Robin peered through the ice with narrowed eyes, trying to make out past the facets to see what was underneath. There was definitely a darkness to this ice that wasn’t present compared to the other ice sheets they’d walked over. Almost like there was more depth or more ice. At the same time, she could distantly, maybe, see some dull color. There _was_ something under the ice. Something large…

 

Robin froze.

 

Dropping Chopper, who simply leapt away and landed on his hooves without missing a beat, Robin was only faintly aware of herself summoning her Cien Fleur Wings as her mind whirred. Jerkingly flying into the sky, she ignoring the alarmed and questioning cries from her friends below because _it couldn’t be_. Her heart was thundering in her chest so rapidly that she didn’t know if she was gasping because of her distress or because she physically, desperately needed the air. Finally gaining enough altitude, she could see the distinct shape of the dark patch, perfectly outlining the shape of the small pond she remembered sat at the base of the Tree. It explained the darkness of the ice, but not the flashes of color she’d seen.

 

Flapping hard to remain level, she drifted to the side until she was hovering inches over the top of the ice plateau. Here, just over the stump of what was once her childhood refuge, overlooking the pond and the island and the stretching sea, she could vividly see what happened in Ohara’s final hours in her mind’s eye.

 

Books.

 

She was looking at books.

 

So many books and manuscripts and journals that it filled the sizeable pond cradled among the roots of their stump. Thrown in because it was possible to restore a waterlogged script, or at least for someone to transcribe and copy it. Utterly impossible if it was turned to ash. In their last hours, possibly right up until the minute they perished along with the Tree, the scholars of Ohara had done their duty to try to preserve history. In her mind, she could see the lovingly preserved books and carefully tended research and journals and papers being desperately flung through broken windows.

 

Professor Clover would have gone for the research he thought the most important. Anything that he thought would be the most beneficial to humankind, research that might have taught humanity a lesson their ancestor had learned.

 

Rint would have grabbed for the precious personal texts. They had all manner of journals, diaries, and letters. She could remember someone remarking that each one were a museum piece in their own right. The large woman always did enjoy looking into the unspoken history; the real personal problems and relationships of historical figures. When Robin was still studying, Rint loved explaining how it was individuals who changed the world. Even by little means, the way they ticked and then made their decision affected more than they could possibly realize. And wasn’t that just so _interesting_?

 

Zadie would have rushed for the archaeological dig records. As someone who loved uncovering physical pieces of the past (buildings, pottery bits, bones), he had been the most well-traveled of their members and in charge of the collection of records gathered from on-site archaeological digs from around the world for the past few centuries. She remembered him most by the sketch books he loved so much, having shown her drawings and notes of the artifacts, buildings, and sites discovered from all over the world.

 

Doubtlessly, Roche would have gone for his own research. The man’s examination of the chemical and material compositions of artifacts as well as his theories of the effects of bacteria in different historical events were groundbreaking and his life’s work. A brisk and proud man, he had a protective streak that once led him to harshly scold one of the other scholars for letting her venture too close to some artifacts Zadie had brought back from Flevance. Apparently, he had a theory that the centuries old city’s Amber Lead was poisonous and probably especially harmful to children.

 

Busshiri would have probably been the only one to indiscriminately grab for anything. He was highly respected for his study of both historical and modern weapons, and had only joined the Ohara’s scholar order in the last few years. Only later did Robin realize that he had probably been brought in, in case their Poneglyph really was about an ancient weapon.

 

Robin knew that Hocha would have grabbed as many things as she could concerning mythology. The short-haired blonde always said that the mythology of a society, whether new or dead, told the most about that people. And Ohara had documented most of the world’s stories over. Where evidence was swept away, lore remained.

 

Gram would have saved their research on ancient and extinct indigenous cultures, as well as dead languages. He had been the one who helped her most in learning Ponelgyphs, having gone behind Professor Clover’s back and quietly slipped her books and tips. There was no doubt he would have remained behind to try to save their records that gave voice to civilizations who could barely leave any written words behind.

 

And now all those records were…

 

Frozen solid.

 

Eyes wide in her stunned epiphany, Robin didn’t fully register the worried yelling as she drifted back down to her friends. With a poof, her wings disappeared in a whirl of pink petals about two stories above the ground, and she plummeted. But the fall only lasted for a split second before arms wrapped around her and bought her safely down to the ground. Whatever the case, all she could do limply sag against the closest person as her mind whirled.

 

The Marines must have seen, must have come after the Buster Call to investigate. And if not the Marines, then at least a Cipher Pol branch. By all accounts, the books should have been fished out and destroyed. Leaving possibly dangerous material lying around to rot wasn’t the style of the Marines nor the World Government. They preferred decisively eliminating all possible threatens swiftly and without mercy. Ohara, the hunt for Gol D. Roger’s unborn child, the fall of Flevance, and other such incidents were prime examples of this. If the books were left ( _hidden_ ) under the ice, then there was a slim, almost nonexistent possibility that they weren’t completely unsalvageable.

 

Akoiji. Akoiji had done this. She didn’t know why or if he had even meant to preserve it, but nevertheless, this _helped_. If those books and manuscripts were salvageable, then the scholars had succeeded. Then she could DO something and recover some of the past, give both the past and her teachers ( _her mother)_ a voice once again.

 

Robin’s lips trembled as the numbness started to recede.

 

Ohara could live still.

 

There was a simultaneous rising pressure behind both her nose and eyes, and a faint clicking in the back of her throat that she tried to keep control of her breathing. Just needed to take one action at a time; one breath in, and one out through her nose, one breath in, and one out through her nose.

 

“O-ohara…,” she stammered breathlessly, trying not to let the watering in her eyes overflow. “Ohara had several thousand years worth of ancient texts…”

 

_“We shouldn’t give up on the future that you’ll be living in.”_

 

“…they must of thrown it into the pond. Hoping that someway, somehow…”

_“LIVE, ROBIN!”_

“…the words would find a way to reach the future.”

 

_“Sumwhere out der in da sea, ya will surely meet yer nakama, Robin!”_

 

The long sob ripping from her rapidly working throat caught her by surprise, and then she just couldn’t stop. She had been taking a breath in and suddenly a choking, raw and breathless whine escaped her like air from a balloon. Slapping a hand over her face to try to hide how she felt her mask collapsing and twisting, she tried to cover the tears and snot and drool starting to run down. It was undignified but she didn’t have the energy to do anything besides try to hide away. There was just so much grief and relief and happiness and _she still missed them so much_. Inside and out, she felt like she was curled up tight and trembling, the torrent making her feel small and helpless. But it was clean, something finally released and her finally _knowing_ facing what she had been running from for forever.

 

Robin was much more aware this time when thin arms wrapped around her, and long, curling hair brush up against the side of her head. She couldn’t hear what the navigator was saying over her own noises, besides that the murmuring was distinctly soothing. Trembling little hooved arms had reattached itself around her leg, and she felt more than heard Chopper’s sniffling. The others she could feel pressed close, practically hovering over her like sentinels in their determined and steadfast protectiveness. Like this, it felt like they were blocking her off from the rest of the world.

 

And as lonely as she felt being back here? She also felt so supported.

 

Here, it was okay that she broke, okay that she couldn’t quite control herself in the way she wanted. Her family were willing to stand by as she finally grieved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://jflicker.tumblr.com/)


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